NSFW (Nikolaus' Song For the Week)

This week's song comes from "Let Babylon Burn" and was brought to my by Spotify timeline recently. When hearing it first, I liked the melody, then listened to some more of their songs and got somehow hooked - like in many similar cases.

So, the first, simple, reason to present this to you is that I like(ed) the song and more songs from them, uniting a little bit of Reggae with some melancholia and nice lyrics. It's certainly not the best song I've ever heard and a bit too bittersweet and kitschy, but it's nice to listen to while writing this text (or doing similar tasks).

The second reason showing you this, is, more importantly, that I'm not sure whether there's a real human behind that voice and melody. Everything I see on Facebook and Twitter/X looks AI generated, the YouTube video shows an AI generated still only

and the Spotify description reads like this: "LetBabylon Burn is an independent artist from Norway. Blending heartfelt, self-written lyrics with a unique fusion of acoustic music, production, recording and AI-enhanced creativity."

Also all the other songs on their YouTube channel seem to follow the same scheme, e.g.

Some sites name a "Robert Lancaster" as composer and writer - which is, of course, just another name leading nowhere.

I didn't invest a day into this, but after 15 minutes googling I don't believe that this person/band/singer really exists. Turing-test, anyone? Reggae-vibes has similar concerns about them in an interesting text and rightly say: "In their pursuit of millions of views, likes, and algorithmic traction, they appear to have unleashed an army of chatbots masquerading as passionate fans. The comment section reads like a series of love letters to a phantom—effusive praise directed at an entity that may not even exist."

Doing some more reading on this it looks as if Spotify deliberately pushes AI music into people's playlists with AI-generated bands like "The Velvet Sundown" with millions of streams an sites like The Rolling Stone writing about them. The phenomenon is also discussed on Reddit and elsewhere (e.g. FM 4) and artists ask to leave Spotify (also) for that reason.

We live in interesting times.

Some of the songs appear to be recorded during live sessions, one can "hear" the "audience" interacting with the band. Provided it's fake: Is this illegal? Should it be illegal? Would it (have to) stay illegal if there was proper information that it's AI generated? Would it be unethical or is this then just another version of fiction, like in a novel?

We live in interesting times, indeed.

I don't know whether the name "LetBabylonBurn" is somehow a reference to Sinead O'Connor ( I doubt so), but it reminded me of her - what an unbeleavably beautiful voice she had and what a sad life and death and what a real human she was.

(Gen-X rant, I know, sorry).

Retrospect

It's still summer, so no presentations or keynotes etc. to report about. Plenty of work, including project reviews, job interviews, administrative tasks etc. ongoing, but nothing to report here.

However, the deep fake issue arrived not only via Let Babylon Burn but also via a media request on what I had to say about videos such as

where AI generated "characters" make political statements. My answer, quoting art. 50 sec.4 AI Act is (hopefully) correct but not helpful.

One of the reasons why AIA fails to do anything useful here is the fact that art. 50 AIA is only to be applied from 2 August 2026 (art. 113 AIA) - which is too late, obviously. But there's also a more fundamental issue here which is that, in my view, the emotional power of these videos would not disappear if it was clearly labeled as AI generated - for the few viewers who don't see this on first instance and still watch it. All of us have become so used to see such AI content in our feeds every day that we, presumalby, don't process them in a fundamentally different way from pure human made content, being emotionally less attached to them.

I touched a similar topic in an #arsboni interview with Julia Krickl from ÖIAT

and analysed the very interesting study on trusted flaggers she is a coauthor of with her.

We jointly identified financing and other ressource-based issues in the Digital Services Act, but Julia's over all assessment of trusted flagging is positive (yet not naive). She also introduced TGuard - a project on AI against desinformation that provided context for her research.

Prospect

Job and Education Perspectives

Just as a reminder: These are the last days to apply for a job vacancy with us and to the next iteration of our LLM-Programme.

Hannover and Timmendorfer Strand

I will travel to Hannover (somehow for work and for nostalgic reasons: 25 years ago, on October 1st 2000, I started working there) and to Timmendorfer Strand (for leisure and writing) next week. That's why I won't do an #arsboni or similar things next week.

DPMC Kick Off

The Data Protection Moot Court (DPMC) launches a Kick Off event on Monday evening. This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about this very nice teaching format.

Look and Feel

Trieste

We spent two rest days in Trieste before returning to Vienna. I was particularily impressed (apart from the "usual" stuff such as coffee, food, etc.) by the works in Porte Vecchio that still looks rather devastated, but is in the process of complete renovation and should become Porto Vivo with an expected investment of 600 Million €.

Magazzino 26 is already refurbished and home of a nice Museo del Mare and a spectacular science museum with lots of experiments one can make. I was very impressed by this serious and succesful approach to science communication.

And then we left.

During our journey by train back to Vienna (quite an adventure, "Schienenersatzverkehr" by bus from Trieste etc.), two more interesting podcasts that I want to recommend made it into my ears.

Machine Learning Street Talk is a (as far as I can tell) technically quite advaced format on - well, you guess it - machine learning. I enjoyed, in particular the episode with Prof. David C. Krakauer on differences between knowledge and intelligence and on externalised human intelligence.

This is not only technically interesting, but also philosophically rather advanced, just like Krakauer's website, citing Wittgenstein and Musil at the very top.

On a very different page, this episode on information security in the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also very relevant:

Iowa

I am currently listening to Stefanie Sargnagel's Iowa on Spotify.

It's about her invitation as a writer in residence at a University in Iowa. As an academic, there's a lot to relate with due to similar exchange programs for scientists. And it's a reason to study the Lassie Singers in more details (real people, for sure).

Vingt Dieux/Holy Cow/Könige des Sommers

Sommerkino Mistelbach showed one last film in the Nitsch mseum this season. This is a beutiful event series and the NGO Kulturverein film.kunst.kino organising this is a wonderful contributor to daily life in the area, not only by keeping the old Kronen Kino alive, but also by adding many interesting additional events.

It's a french movie, Vingt Dieux, tranlsated into "Könige des Sommers" in German and Holy Cow in English, directed by Louise Courvoisier. It's labeled as a tragicomedy which it is not, in my view. It's a quite serious film about the hardships of surviving and growing up as an orphan in rural France, about alcohol and cheese production. It won a prize in Cannes and it's worth being watched if you find it.

Here's the trailer:

Kronen Kino organises, inter alia, a concert from Die Strottern & Blech on September 26th that I will (try to) join. If you don't know them yet: they are, among other beautiful things, the authors of one of the most beautiful love songs I know.

Daisy

enjoys the late summer early evening sun on her chest.

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)